3 Tips That Will Help You Complete Your 2018 Marketing Goals

One of the most memorable—and effective—marketing campaigns of 2017 didn’t involve TV advertising, a new website, blogging, email, pay-per-click advertising, SEO, viral video or direct mail.

The tactic used by this company? A bronze statue. But you probably know this statue by its now famous name—Fearless Girl.

Unless you spent the year living on the moon, you couldn’t have missed the worldwide excitement and attention generated by Fearless Girl. The company behind the four-foot statue is State Street Global Advisors (SSGA).

SSGA created the statue to celebrate the first-year anniversary of its Gender Diversity Index fund, which is made up of large U.S. companies that rank highly for “achieving gender diversity across senior leadership.” To be sure, a narrowly targeted marketing goal.

The statue was placed on Wall Street the day before International Women’s Day last year and quickly became a global sensation. “Bloomberg estimates the statue generated $7.4 million in free advertising for SSGA just in the first six weeks,” according to Inc. magazine.

3 Tips to Help You Create Your Marketing Goals

1. Align your marketing goals with your business and sales goals:

Your firm’s business or sales objectives always drive marketing strategy, not the other way around. Are you launching a new product? Expanding into a new territory? Moving a venerable brand into a tangential market segment? Going up against a new competitor? Growing market share? Improving customer communication?

Each of these goals calls for a unique marketing execution. For instance, launching an all-new product would require a mix of several tactics, whereas expanding an existing product line into a new geographic area may only need a few tactics and a more straightforward approach.

Moreover, when you align your sales goals with marketing objectives, you’ll grow faster, according to John White, founder, and CMO of Social Marketing Solutions. “During my 20-year career in B2B, I've witnessed a disjointed sales and marketing team be the cause of limited growth within an organization too many times.”

Today, with B2B companies operating across multiple industries and complex distribution channels, buying decisions are often being made by several individuals. It’s imperative that you accurately identify each decision maker—or persona—and create unique messages that appeal to that person’s needs and wants.

I’m aware of a large manufacturing company undergoing a redesign of its global website. The company’s target buyers represent a broad range of industries and roles such as contractors, plant managers, service managers, purchasing managers, and homeowners. The voice, tone, and messaging for each of these personas is unique— guided by a comprehensive style guide, which helps the company achieve consistent messaging across its global markets.

3. Decide if you need external help to execute your marketing goals:

Do you have the capacity to implement your marketing goals with internal resources? For the small to midsize business, the question to outsource or not is a common one. There are benefits to each approach, with the final decision often dictated by the size of budget and industry.

Internal marketing teams tend to know the company culture and business goals like no outsider and have close connections with customers. Outsiders, however, bring fresh perspectives to a company and valuable insights learned from other industries. Ultimately, most CEOs or CMOs choose a combination of an internal marketing staff (even if it’s just one person) and freelancers, contractors or an agency.

The right mix of internal vs. outsource support for your needs, and your marketing goals are up to you.

In conclusion, while marketing goals differ from company to company, the goal of marketing is indelibly about promoting a product or company’s leadership position. And that’s why today’s CEOs, says Scott Galloway, marketing professor, at NYU Stern School of Business, “must be effective communicators and storytellers.”

Want to get better at creating and executing your own growth strategies? Check out a Vistage executive peer group.

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About the author

Vistage chair Tom Gunderson has deep experience in creating and leading the profitable growth of diverse global, mid-cap and startup businesses ranging from less than $1M to well over $5B.
He was a senior executive for Nielsen where he transformed the business model that led to a successful IPO. Prior to that, as co-founder of Bacon Gunderson Consulting, he helped executives grow major brands across diverse industries including CPG, automotive, financial, healthcare, and retail. He began his career at Pillsbury where he expanded the Green Giant platform that led to global leadership. Tom holds a BS in Engineering from the University of Wisconsin—Madison and an MBA from the University of Oregon.